The Red Rover & Other Sea Adventures – 3 Novels in One Volume. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

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      Chapter XXIII

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      “I melt, and am not of stronger earth than others.”

      —Coriolanus

      The females received their visiter with a restraint which will be easily understood when the subject of their recent conversation is recollected. The sinking of Gertrude’s form was deep and hurried, but her governess maintained the coldness of her air with greater self-composure. Still, there was a gleaming of powerful anxiety in the watchful glance that she threw towards her guest, as though she would divine the motive of the visit by the wanderings of his changeful eye, even before his lips had parted in the customary salute.

      The countenance of the Rover himself was thoughtful to gravity. He bowed as he came within the influence of the lamp, and his voice was heard muttering some low and hasty syllables, that conveyed no meaning to the ears of his listeners. Indeed, so great was the abstraction in which he was lost, that he had evidently prepared to throw his person on the vacant divan, without explanation or apology, like one who took possession of his own; though recollection returned just in time to prevent this breach of decorum. Smiling, and repeating his bow, with a still deeper inclination, he advanced with perfect self-possession to the table, where he expressed his fears that Mrs Wyllys might deem his visit unseasonable or perhaps not announced with sufficient ceremony. During this short introduction his voice was bland as woman’s, and his mien courteous, as though he actually felt himself an intruder in the cabin of a vessel in which he was literally a monarch.

      “But, unseasonable as is the hour,” he continued, “I should have gone to my cott with a consciousness of not having discharged all the duties of an attentive and considerate host, had I forgotten to reassure you of the tranquillity of the ship, after the scene you have this day witnessed. I have pleasure in saying, that the humour of my people is already expended, and that lambs, in their nightly folds, are not more placid than they are at this minute in their hammocks.”

      “The authority that so promptly quelled the disturbance is happily ever present to protect us,” returned the cautious governess; “we repose entirely on your discretion and generosity.”

      “You have not misplaced your confidence. From the danger of mutiny, at least, you are exempt.”

      “And from all others, I trust.”

      “This is a wild and fickle element we dwell on,” he answered, while he bowed an acknowledgment for the politeness, and took the seat to which the other invited him by a motion of the hand; “but you know its character, and need not be told that we seamen are seldom certain of any of our movements I loosened the cords of discipline myself to-day,” he added, after a moment’s pause, “and in some measure invited the broil that followed: But it is passed, like the hurricane and the squall; and the ocean is not now smoother than the tempers of my knaves.”

      “I have often witnessed these rude sports in vessels of the King; but I do not remember to have known any more serious result than the settlement of some ancient quarrel, or some odd freak of nautical humour, which has commonly proved as harmless as it has been quaint.”

      “Ay; but the ship which often runs the hazards of the shoals gets wrecked at last,” muttered the Rover “I rarely give the quarter-deck up to the people, without keeping a vigilant watch on their humours; but—to-day”——

      “You were speaking of to-day.”

      “Neptune, with his coarse devices, is no stranger to you, Madam.”

      “I have seen the God in times past.”

      “‘Twas thus I understood it;—under the line?”

      “And elsewhere.”

      “Elsewhere!” repeated the other, in a tone of disappointment. “Ay, the sturdy despot is to be found in every sea; and hundreds of ships, and ships of size too, are to be seen scorching in the calms of the equator. It was idle to give the subject a second thought.”

      “You have been pleased to observe something that has escaped my ear.”

      The Rover started; for he had rather muttered than spoken the preceding sentence aloud. Casting a swift and searching glance around him, as it might be to assure himself that no impertinent listener had found means to pry into the mysteries of a mind he seldom saw fit to lay open to the free examination of his associates, he regained his self-possession on the instant, and resumed the discourse with a manner as undisturbed as if it had received no interruption.

      “Yes, I had forgotten that your sex is often as timorous as it is fair,” he added, with a smile so insinuating and gentle, that the governess cast an involuntary and uneasy glance towards her charge, “or I might have been earlier with my assurance of safety.”

      “It is welcome even now.”

      “And your young and gentle friend,” he continued, bowing openly to Gertrude, though he still addressed his words to the governess; “her slumbers will not be the heavier for what has passed.”

      “The innocent seldom find an uneasy pillow.”

      “There is a holy and unsearchable mystery in that truth: The innocent pillow their heads in quiet! Would to God the guilty might find some refuge, too, against the sting of thought! But we live in a world, and a time, when men cannot be sure even of themselves.”

      He then paused, and looked about him, with a smile so haggard, that the anxious governess unconsciously drew nigher to her pupil, like one who sought, and was willing to yield, protection against the uncertain designs of a maniac. Her visiter, however, remained in a silence so long and deep, that she felt the necessity of removing the awkward embarrassment of their situation, by speaking herself.

      “Do you find Mr Wilder as much inclined to mercy as yourself?” she asked. “There would be merit in his forbearance, since he appeared to be the particular object of the anger of the mutineers.”

      “And yet you saw he was not without his friends. You witnessed the devotion of the men who stood forth in his behalf?”

      “I did: and find it remarkable that he should have been able, in so short a time, to conquer thus completely two so stubborn natures.”

      “Four-and-twenty years make not an acquaintance of a day!”

      “And does their friendship bear so old a date?”

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